1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to advertising over a wide area network such as the Internet, and more particularly, to a system and method that allows an Internet user to place an advertisement within a personal communication, and provides a recipient of the personal communication requesting additional information with such information regardless of the network device the recipient is using.
2. Description of Related Art
The number of Internet users has been growing at an ever increasing rate over the past seven years. By the end of 2000 there will be more than 400 million individuals worldwide that have access to the Internet, where 153 million of those individuals reside in the United States. Businesses are aware of this growing audience and have responded by spending $3.1 billion for Internet advertising in 1999. Although advertising through the Internet has indirect benefits, like reinforcing brand name recognition, the direct benefits of Internet advertising can be seen through e-commerce transactions, which generated over $132 billion worldwide in 2000.
The rapid increase in the number of individuals who have Internet access has lead to, and may in part be attributed to, an increase in e-mail usage. With respect to the 153 million U.S. individuals that have access to the Internet, 97 million of them are over the age of 14 and have active e-mail accounts. Studies have shown that 90% of those e-mail users connect to the Internet primarily to view and send e-mail. Additionally, 40% of those individuals stated that checking their e-mail was one of the first things they do in the morning, as well as one of the last things they do before going to bed. As these numbers suggest, the e-mail users, which worldwide are responsible for generating 10 billion e-mail messages daily, are spending a great deal of time interacting with a medium that is relatively untapped by the advertising industry. In an effort to penetrate this medium, businesses spent over $1.1 billion on e-mail marketing in 2000. The preliminary success of such marketing has led firms like eMarketer™ to predict that funds allocated to e-mail marketing will rise to $4.5 billion by 2003.
With the amount of funds being spent on e-mail marketing, it is imperative that those advertising campaigns produce profitable results. This requires e-mail advertising service providers to offer focused, result-driven, advertising methods. A basic premise to begin with is the notion that e-mail advertisements must produce a positive association in the consumers' mind with the advertised product. A negative association, which can be produced by advertising through unsolicited e-mail, not only does not benefit the organization, but may actually harm it in the long run. For example, if a business buys a list of e-mail addresses from an industry that has a similar customer base, the response they get from the recipient may have quite the opposite effect of that intended. Unsolicited e-mail messages, also referred to as spam or junk e-mail, may annoy the consumer so much that a negative connotation with the product is formed in the consumer's mind, thus reducing sales in off-line markets through poor brand name association.
One way to avoid the negative association created through unsolicited e-mail advertisements is to advertise through solicited e-mails. That is attach advertisements to standard e-mail messages (or other solicited communications) that are being sent between individuals that have a personal or professional relationship. Advertising in this manner is much less intrusive and appears to the recipient as a platform for the message, instead of the message itself. There are currently two different business plans that utilize solicited e-mail for advertising. These two business methods are the “desired account” method (referred to as the Hotmail™ method) and the “paid advertisement” method (referred to as the NightMail™ method).
Hotmail™ provides an Internet user with an e-mail address in exchange for placing a Hotmail™ (or affiliate) interactive link within every e-mail message that originates from the account. This allows Hotmail™ to advertise itself to recipients of e-mail messages in exchange for providing and maintaining an e-mail address. The reason this is referred to as the “desired account” method is due to the popularity of the Hotmail™ name. Internet users prefer to have a Hotmail™ account over other similar accounts (e.g., Mail.com), which are also free, because of the name recognition associated with it.
There are three problems with advertisers using the “desired account” method. First, there is a great deal of setup costs associated with a Web site capable of receiving, storing, and transmitting high quantities of data, as required by an e-mail service provider. Second, the advertiser would need brand name recognition capable of enticing Internet users to become e-mail subscribers, which may prove to be quite hard if the advertiser is not as well known (and attractively viewed) as Hotmail™. Third, an Internet user that already has an e-mail account would be less inclined to sign up for a second one, which would force the Internet user to monitor and maintain multiple e-mail account.
NightMail™ provides an Internet user with an e-mail address in exchange for placing interactive advertisement links within every e-mail message that originates from the account. Additionally, the Internet user is rewarded through a point system if the advertisement is deemed successful. The points can later be redeemed through the Web site for merchandise or money. This is referred to as the “paid advertisement” method because Internet users are paid (in points) for using the NightMail™ service. By paying Internet users to use such a service, businesses that don't have the brand name recognition can pay to have their advertisements included in solicited e-mails.
There are four problems with advertisers using the “paid advertisement” method. First, as discussed above, Internet users that already have an e-mail account would be less inclined to sign up for a second one, which would force the Internet user to monitor and maintain multiple e-mail accounts. Second, in the absence of any subscription questionnaire (which would only provide moderate information anyway), the advertiser would have no idea what demographic is going to be exposed to the advertisement or whether the recipient of the e-mail will be a consumer that would be inclined to purchase the advertising product. For example, advertisements for dating services could be sent to married couples, which provides the advertiser with little benefit. This leads to the third problem, given that the advertisements are placed at random, the recipient may be offended by the advertisement, thus creating a negative association with the product. Not only does this reflect poorly on the advertiser, but it also reflects poorly on the sender of the e-mail, possibly discouraging future use of such a service. For example, advertisements for McDonalds could be viewed as offensive if they are sent to a Hindu. Fourth, when the advertisers realize the problems associated with such a system, they will only pay the Internet users for advertisements that prove to be successful (e.g., the recipient interacts with the advertisement or makes a purchase). However, this is extremely unfair to the Internet user when you consider that 40% of people who purchase a product after they view an online advertisement do so between eight and thirty days after seeing the advertisement.
From the above discussion, it is clear that an e-mail advertisement service provider should appeal to the e-mail recipient, the e-mail sender, and the advertiser in order to be effective in the marketplace. In order to appeal to the e-mail recipients, the e-mail containing the advertisement should be solicited. Thus, it would be preferable if the e-mail message came from someone the recipient knew, either personally or professionally, and the content of the e-mail message was not primarily related to the advertisement. Additionally the advertisement would have to be non-offensive to the recipient.
In order for an e-mail advertisement service provider to appeal to a sender of e-mail, the sender should be adequately compensated for his trouble. This would include compensating the sender for the mere presence of an advertisement in a sent communication (whether that communication be e-mail, chat-room dialog, instant messaging, etc.). This compensation would obviously be increased if the advertisement was interacted with and/or purchases were made. Additionally, the e-mail service should work in conjunction with a sender's existing e-mail address, thus enabling the sender to only have to monitor and maintain one e-mail account. Finally, the sender should be able to choose which advertisements (or advertising entities) are to be included in his e-mail. For example, this would allow an individual with an interest in sports to attach a Nike™ advertisement to his e-mail, thus portraying the individual as an athletically minded individual, much like one does when one wears a t-shirt containing the Nike™ logo.
Finally, an e-mail advertisement service provider would appeal to an advertiser if the end product produced advertisements that were placed before interested consumers. By giving the sender the ability to choose which advertisements should be incorporated within his e-mails, the advertising message gets displayed before the sender, who is most likely a consumer of the advertised product, and before the recipient, who, by association, is more likely than not to also share the same interests as the sender. Additionally, the advertising service should be capable of distributing e-mails and advertisements to recipients operating on non-traditional Internet devices (e.g., mobile phones). The service should also be flexible enough to adapt to changes within the on-line advertising industry.
Thus, a need exists, and it would be desirable, for a flexible, device and data neutral system that compensates Internet users for sending personal communications containing user selected advertisements, and providing additional communication data to those recipients that interact with the selected advertisements.